If you ride a bicycle you will probably already know of Josie Dew, patron saint of cycle touring and diminutive travel writer, whose previous volumes The Wind in my Wheels, Travels in a Strange State, A Ride in the Neon Sun and The Sun in my Eyes, have rightly become classics of their kind.Well, they have at A to B Towers, anyway.
For the uninitiated, Josie is afflicted with a genetic urge to travel, and she’s been doing it since her parents finally loosened her reins, at the age of about ten. Many of us suffer from travelitus, of course, but Josie also turned out to be a fine writer and observer, thus allowing the rest of us to share her experiences in exotic and sometimes rather odd corners of the world.
Slow Coast Home is a rather different – and in some ways more difficult – project, because it’s the story of a cycle tour in dear grubby old Blighty: a 5,000-mile circumnavigation of England,Wales, and a scattering of rocky satellites and islets.
It must be easier to write about foreign parts, because in Britain most encounters seem to begin, end, and very often major on, the weather and the lack of camping accommodation. All credit then, to Josie, for producing a readable and at times very enjoyable volume.
One also needs to take extra care with the research at home, because most people will claim to be an expert on at least part of it.We’re glad to say that in our own little corner, Josie is spot on, unearthing the same charming Westcountry factlets we love to bore you with ourselves.
In places this is a thoroughly depressing book. It’s the story of a land populated largely by fat, vulgar, rude and arrogant folk, with a few decent old dears thrown in when you least expect ‘em. From the gormless, aggressive youths spitting on passing cyclists to the lethal, muddle-headed elderly motorists, we’re all in here somewhere.
Ah yes, motors. As any ‘A to B’ cyclist will appreciate, cars were bound to be a key theme in Slow Coast Home. As Josie discovers (as if she didn’t know already) there are too many cars, being driven too fast, on roads that simply weren’t designed for such unpleasantness.True to form, cars sit in country lane-blocking jams, fill our heroine’s lungs with mucky particulates, then break free and sweep past with inches to spare. Again and again and again. Once in a while, the monsters behind the wheel vent their anger and frustration on this innocent passerby, but the best passages are reserved for the surreal moments, as when Josie gets boxed in by a pair of 4x4s on a Devon lane:
“Her dirty glower said,‘Go on you pesty pedalist – get out of my way! For I am bigger and I am grander!’ But trying to get out of her way was pointless… I knew that any moment now, Mrs Discovery would come haring round the corner… Right on cue, loomed Mrs Discovery who, amidst much burning of rubber, just managed to slam on her brakes in time before I became entangled in her bull-bars. I was now pig in the middle of two very fat and shiny elevated bonnets, polished up like cut glass… behind which sat two irritated women staring down their noses at the low-life in their way… Such are the consequences when one chooses to drive tanks down narrow country lanes.
Finally, there was nothing for it other than for Mrs Cherokee to relent and reverse. Unfortunately, I don’t think Mrs Cherokee had ever relented in all her Cherokee-helmed life, for it became evident that she couldn’t find reverse. I watched her, and Mrs Discovery watched her, as she sat strapped in her all-terrain flight deck grappling unsuccessfully with her controls…
But oh! – what reversing! With diabolical technique, Mrs Cherokee edged her way in reverse down the hill by way of rear-view mirror navigation… She ground up the bank one side before mounting it on the other, removing whole clumpfulls of delicate wild flowers in the process… Eventually… having obliterated great chunks of rare bankside flora, Mrs Cherokee reached the mouth of a track… the dust settled and we each went our respective ways.”
What sort of pitiful world have we created? Travelling by bicycle, Josie is greeted like a creature from another planet (another thing A to B types might recognise), but as an alien, she’s well placed to convey just how odd our little planet has become. Even the familiar bits. After reading Slow Coast Home, you will never look at familiar places and familiar attitudes to transport in quite the same way again.
Everyone should read this book. If nothing else, the terminally lazy might grasp that if a diminutive woman of five foot nothing can haul 70kg right around the coast, they might just be up to cycling to the corner shop themselves once in a while. And despite all the unpleasantness, Josie usually manages to pull a silver lining from behind the clouds, which is fortunate, because there are plenty of them.
Three warnings should you happen to bump into the author: Don’t mention the weather, don’t comment on her youthful looks, and don’t shout; ‘You could do with a motor on that, love!’, or she may throttle you with her bottom bracket. Ooh, the unkindest cut of all!
Slow Coast Home Josie Dew . ISBN 0 316 85362 3 . Pages 457 . Illustrations 32 colour photos Publisher Time Warner Books . Price £20.00 (UK) $38.95 (Canada)
